A Whole New World
by Indigo2831
Summary: 11x22 - "We Happy Few" AU Tag. It's basically a re-write of the season 11 finale. Amara figures out the easiest way to hurt Dean is by destroying Sam. Surprises and angst abound.


_It has been long time since I've posted a fic. I've been sitting on this one for a few years even though I honestly love it, I struggled a bit with the ending. I've wanted to write this some of the moments for Sam for years. I also wanted to fix the snooze-fest that was the season 11 finale. Please let me know what you think of my cathartic fix-it fic._

* * *

 **A Whole New World**

Sam gazes upon an unconscious Chuck lying mere feet from him, and slumps back against the pillar, his normal immovable determination sputtering out of him on a ragged exhale and a half-smothered sob.

If the world hadn't ended yet, he wasn't sure would last much longer, not with its creator fading in front of him.

He can hear Dean emoting pain beside him, but only catches glimpses of his brother in his periphery, but he can't seem to move more than his eyes.

But it doesn't matter.

As the smoke and dust rain down in a fine grit, Amara, healed and radiant with righteousness, directs her rage to Dean.

Sam witnesses the holy power she has over him. Dean's features, once gnarled in pain, slacken in an expression of blank stupidity. If this were any other threat, Dean would reaching for his gun regardless of its effectiveness. With Amara, he merely sits there, flat-faced and overtaken. Sam isn't sure how Dean ever mistook this for love or longing. This is poison, a supernatural drug that extinguishes free will.

Amara is swelling with hatred and betrayal. She seems to siphon it from the air, milking Crowley dry and feasting on Lucifer's sadism. "How dare you!" Her voice is volatile and the unnatural octave rattles Sam's teeth. "I thought we couldn't hurt each other. I thought you out of the billions of angst-ridden, tormented, tainted beasts could never move against me."

Dean sputters for an answer, shaking his head futilely. "Amara, I didn't...I'm so sorry."

She lifts her hand, and Dean falls dutifully silent. "Stow your rationales and excuses, Dean," she advances, the black linen of her skirt brushing the tips of Sam's shoes. "I gave you time to realize what we could have together. How blissful it could be without...all of this-the trees and the air and the futile work you do. I thought if a human could set me free and make me feel so...comforted, maybe they all are worth saving. Until now," she extends her hands towards Dean, who braces for death, but nothing happens. She hollers in frustration, and the sky, humming with the slate light of dawn, slides into grim darkness. "You can't hurt me, but I've always had the power to hurt you. I just never thought I'd use it."

Impossibly, Amara's head cranes down. She regards Sam with a treacherous grin.

Horrified, Dean hollers. "Oh God, No! _SAM, RUN_!"

Sam feels himself vanish before he has the chance to scream.

Teleportation, even at the hands of a god, isn't like any the gentle wrap of warm light as Sam has seen on "Star Trek." It's akin to being stuffed down a drain, a suffocatingly and claustrophobic freefall that bears the stench of billions of years of earth and brimstone.

Sam emerges in a funnel of wind, and hacking and gagging as his stomach unsticks from his ribcage. His hands clench over rough, sun-baked stone. He only deciphers mist and sky before his body is maneuvered by magic. It shoves him upright at the waist, whips his arms out straight, so they can be tethered to spikes by manacles forged of stone.

Sam tosses out a few profanities as he's stretched out, vulnerable and captured in a place he's not even sure is located on earth. Amara emerges from the fog, the trains of her dress caked in brown dust, and looms over him. Power wafts off of her so intensely Sam can see it, a celestially bright aura bespeckled with darkness and rage.

In the presence of an actual omnipresent being, Sam does the best thing he can think of: he cowers. Abject terror sends tremors of fear through every atom of his being, and he casts his eyes downward to his bent knees.

The wind shuffles the mist to the west, and Sam can see their perched on the flat top of a mountain. If he had to guess, he would say it was Mount Roraima, except that landscape is lush and ripe, the blunted peek creating out of the dense rainforest canopy. The horizon here is nothing but brown desolation, treacherous pillars of rock, and peculiar reddish light.

There's no catalyst that triggers a sudden and horrific blast of pain that burns neon behind his eyes and curses his muscles to seize like a deadbolt. He gurgles on vomit and bile trapped in his throat. Even when she stops, the pain resonates through him, like seismic aftershocks. He's not sure how much he takes before he passes out.

Sam awakens to the sight of his own blood congealing on the rocks, to a shoulder he ripped out of socket trying to escape Amara's torture, to knees that are scraped raw from grinding against coarse stone. The relentless throb is almost pleasant compared to earlier agonies.

"Pain doesn't work on you," Amara declares. She is insulted.

Sam isn't sure what her endgame is besides destroying him. She circles him, arms behind her back in a dejected inspection.

Sam can't answer. His jaw had locked during each surge, and he's sure he's bitten a chunk off of tongue. He spits blood at her feet. Amara grips his cheek, squeezing until his lips part and blood dribbles out. Her dark eyes sear into him, beyond iris and schlera, and into soul and spirit. "You're different," she gasps. She adjusts her grip, fisting his sweat-soaked hair and yanking his head back so harshly, his neck cracks. "Why are you different?"

She leans in, pressing her forehead against his. The resulting invasion is a needle-thin slither amongst the wreckage and light of his soul. She peers inside his most private thoughts and memories. He tries to shrink back and away but it proves futile when he tries. Surrender tastes like weakness and iron from a divine cage and his own blood.

Amara staggers back, nearly tripping on her dress. The unsettling reddish light brightens to a more earthly yellow. "You were caged," she whispers, fingers hovering over her mouth as if she downloaded senses along with the memories, " _with Lucifer_."

Sam's restraints dissolve into the ether, and he gratefully wilts to the ground, clutching his misshapen shoulder. His eyes whip about the mountaintop for anything he can use to as leverage to put his it back in the socket. But there's nothing but planes of gray rock and pale, turbulent sky. He can only tuck the limp limb to his chest and swallow down the rising misery. "Yes," the word strains out through clenched teeth and desiccated lips. "For centuries."

"Why would they imprison you? What could a human have possibly done to deserve such penance?"

Sam remembers her speaking to Chuck, and that being caged again is a fate worse than death. For once they have a common ground, something Sam can exploit. Except that Amara hadn't wanted the world to be born, and Sam hadn't wanted it to end. He risks a brief glimpse of Amara's face, and while he doesn't find kindness there, the earlier calamity is absent.

There's another thread that could tie them together. "Dean," he says strongly. "Lucifer wanted his evil to reign on earth, and he used my brother to start it. Maybe I saved the world by falling, trapping Lucifer, but in that moment, I was just savin' m'brother."

Amara has stopped pacing around him like a patient buzzard waiting for its prey to succomb. She's standing to the right of him, listening. "And you were trapped?"

"God banished Lucifer to a cage in the lower levels of hell. It was dark, and stunk of grace. I could hear the other souls screaming as they were tortured, as they turned. Eventually the screams became this…dead, wild laughter, and that's how I knew they were gone. That they were now demons. It took decades sometimes, but it always happened." Sam explains, losing himself in the memory. "Lucifer had been down there alone for eons, so he delighted in his company. Sometimes Michael would join in and sometimes he'd distract him but it was really just eternities of torture. Of being taken apart of put back together wrong. Of being violated in ways I still can't speak of. Of being stripped of everything that makes you you...happiness, humor, skin, eyes, teeth..." Sam finds himself thinking about those first days topside.

He didn't have his memories of yet, and still he'd been transfixed by the beauty of the world. He'd get distracted by simple things like soap bubbles and rustle of dry leaves on the trees. The symphony of colors in Dean's eyes, and the softness of cotton sheets.

Amara kneels in front of him, eyes a glow in righteous rage. "So you understand why the universe must end. It'll give everyone peace."

The pain of Sam's dislocated shoulder is cresting over his tolerances in unbearable waves, and his arm feels floppy and cold. His hand is graying and numb. There's no circulation, and the limb is dying. But there's not much he can do about it right now. "N-no, please don't misunderstand me," Sam says. The magnitude of the situation doesn't escape him, it chokes him and burns deeper than Amara's lightning bolts and Lucifer's curious hands, because she's actually listening.

The past few weeks, rescuing and living with Lucifer, have brought it all back and most days he's proud of himself for functioning even as Lucifer leers at him from across the room. Even with Cas's face, Sam could sense the sadist beneath it. Feel the scrape of his nails inside of his skull or tickling his spine.

"I would do it again," Sam declares. "Yes, for Dean, but because of the eight billion people on earth. We're not perfect. We're flawed and some of us are broken, but we're inherently good. And we create far more than we destroy." Dizziness assails him and he sways a little, jarring his shoulder. Sam clutches it and bleats out his pain.

Cold fingers clutch the limb, and Sam arches and forgets to breathe as he feels epiphysis knock against scapula. There's a flash of fluid fire and nauseating click, and the pain recedes. Amara hand returns to her lap. Sam wipes away tears and swipes a hand over his mouth. "Thank you." The limb is still heavy and uncooperative, but tingling with aching sensation and restored blood flow.

Sam doesn't notice the changes in the weather until the clouds are thick, heavy cloud cleave and spill, coating the mountaintop in rain.

"Do not preach to me about Creation," Amara warns. Lightning splits the blackening sky above them.

Sam basks in the rain, opening his mouth to drink it in. The cold splatter is heaven on his flushed skin and injured shoulder.

He backtracks a bit, lifting his good hand in surrender. "I'm not. I'm talking about what's already there, the living. Have you experienced music or love or...a really good donut? They are worth saving."

"Omnipresent divine beings do not eat," Amara says, crossing her arms over her chest.

The rain tugs the curl from her hair, darkening it.

"You could try."

"I don't know love. I've spent an eternity in darkness," Amara reminds him. "Love is what drove my brother to cast me down there. Love is the heart of all evil."

Sam chuckles mirthlessly before he can stop himself. Amara's entire being flips from accommodating to ferocious in the negative space between moments. Thankfully the bolt of power that careens from her hands isn't the electrifying torture but a surge of concentrated energy that clobbers Sam like a sucker-punch from a giant, not only knocking him onto his back but sends him sliding dangerously close to the precipice. Stone grates the skin off his arm and hip. The conflicting currents of air threatened to drag him over the edge. He paws at the ground with both hands, nails cracking and tearing, and manages to catch himself after his legs breach empty air. His mangled left shoulder rages against the abuse, but Sam ignores it, inching himself up and patiently raking his foot against the edge of the cliff in search of a foothold. The ferocity of the rain renders the rocks slick, and his grip tenuous.

By the time he drags himself to safety, Sam's drenched and so exhausted, he nearly passes out. Amara hovers over him, and Sam fears they're back to the monstrous square one. He struggles to gather enough breath to explain. "Wasn't laughing at you...promise." His tongue is bleeding again, and his vision blurs if he moves too much.

"Talk," Amara commands.

"Love isn't evil. Love starts revolutions and thwarts dictators. Love is everything," Sam whispers. The rain splatters in his face and drips into his nose, and he wonders if everyone has ever drowned by deluge.

"Love is everything, you say? Is love what made your brother trick you into being possessed by Gadreel? Is love what made him throw away the amulet you were so proud to give him? Is love what made him kill your friend, Amy, even after promising he wouldn't? We're connected, bonded, and I know exactly what he thinks of you," Amara grizzled. "Do you want to know?"

She stoops beside him, gaze sweeping over Sam as he's sprawled out over the rocks, like a pathetic, dying animal. Even as the dread blossoms inside of him, bats fluttering in his stomach instead of butterflies, he refuses to cower again. He pushed himself up, knowing a fat raindrop would threaten to lay him out again, and arranges his face in a cocksure grin, "Sure, why not?"

"Once you sort through all the trauma and scar tissue, there are simple things, hidden things like...Burden. Crazy. _Freak_..." She ticks off the insults and each one lands like a physical blow, inflicting more damage than her lightning. " _Junkie. Weak. Monster_." Sam takes it though, closing his eyes as the downpour continues. "You see, Sam, love is evil, mutated. It's an infliction that makes people chain themselves to anchors and forces them to drown in their pain."

And Sam nearly believes her. Amara leaves him, and he chokes out a sob or two when her back is turned. "I know what he thinks of me. I know what I'm guilty of and I know what I've done. But he's still here. He still fights for me. I don't have to be all powerful to know that Dean's tearing the world apart to find me. He's probably blackmailing your brother right now. And that's why I'm still here. That's why we're both still here. Because love isn't perfect. It's not magic. It's doing accepting the other person, faults, warts and all. It's building them up, despite it. It's sacrifice, and yes, sometimes it sucks." Sam licks his lips. "You don't think there aren't times I don't want to smash his teeth in? You've seen inside my head, you know I've done it. But I still love him. I'm still there for him. There are billions of people who I hope are stuck in the same maddening cycle. That's why I fight. That's why I've sacrificed my whole life, the love of my life. That's why I know you're going to kill me, and I'm okay with it if you'll just spare...the world."

"You would've made a great lawyer, Sam. I'm not sure I'm ruling in your favor, though."

Sam switches tactics. "If I held a gun to Dean's head and pulled the trigger, what would you do?"

"Disintegrate you. Destroy every atom," she shrugs.

"Why?"

"Because...I can't survive without him, because he was there when I was small and helpless and so hungry, and he's been there ever since...because..."

Sam sees the moment it all falls home, when Amara finally connects her bizarre imprinting on Dean as actual love. She stumbles back, brushing a hand over her lips. The rain stops as if someone flipped a switch.

Plants erupt from the rocks. It's a study in botany as sweeping vines and sturdy ferns emerge and sprout leaves, then merrily hued blooms. Sam eases himself upright to watch them billow through solid rock.

Though he attempts not to react, a smile tugs at his lips as he sees emerald sweep through the distance. In a matter of seconds, Sam is no longer perched on the summit of a mountain, but ensconced in a pristine forest brimming with flowers and fruit that hums with energy.

Amara stands with her hands behind her back, admiring her work. "What do you propose we do, then, Sam? I cannot sit idly by and watch you humans lay waste to each other. I cannot live in a universe in which my brother wants me caged in solitude for all existence. I cannot win."

"Yes, you can," Sam insists. "If you're brother created earth, why can't you create your own universe? Live there. I grew up...in a chaotic, abusive, scary manner. I watched people I love die. I watched my father...sacrifice everything for others and I didn't understand why. But the second I could, I struck out and built my own life. I was happy," Sam says. "You can do the same. Heck, maybe you and Chuck can visit on holidays."

Amara gapes at him.

"You don't get sarcasm, do you?"

Her nostrils flare.

Sam admires at beautiful black flower that sparkles with gold. "You made this. I think you could make a fantastic universe that's just right for you."

Amara seems to ponder the idea. "If I understand this correctly, love is sacrifice, correct? It's a fall into Lucifer's cage. It's jumping on the bomb so your brother won't have to."

"It can be, yes."

Amara is pleased by his answer, and something emerges behind him. He sees the shadow sluice over a clutch of plants and feels the change in the energy. He's rising to his feet before he even realizes it, compelled by it.

There's nothing that could prepare him for what he sees when Amara steps aside to reveal what else she's made. It shatters Sam's entire demeanor, tearing eyes never straying from the sight that's instantly soothes a marrow-deep ache of loss he's survived with for eleven years (give or take a few centuries).

It's Jessica Moore, whole and alive.

Amara ventures behind her, sweeping the hair from her shoulder, revealing her pronounced collarbones. The one Sam would always stoop to kiss whenever she flopped on the couch to watch TV or when they lazily made out on rainy afternoon.

Jessica stands still, all unseeing eyes and impossibly beautiful. "This is actually her, Sam, as she would've been had she lived. Give her a moment for the soul to settle in the body."

Sam rakes his fingers through his damp hair. "Why're you doing this?"

"Love is sacrifice, right?" She shrugs. "But with you and Dean, it's also a series of increasingly reckless deals. So let's make one. Not far from here, there's a house. It has a bright blue door and a library on the third floor." She pauses at Sam's whimper of recognition, "You know it well. It's the one you often fantasized about having as a child, complete with fields for farming and a few puppies. You'll have everything you need. You and your beloved, and even Dean, can live out your days here while I go and collect on my brother's debts."

"Or..."

"Or...you say goodbye to Miss Moore, and I'll be on my way like you suggested."

There's a high-pitched whirring behind his eyes that Sam has attributed to overwrought panic that extends beyond his years as a hunter, and Sam idly wonders if steam is protruding from his ears as his brain tries to process the impossible.

Amara presses her hand into Jessica's chest, and she sputters to life, gulping air and staggering like a new born giraffe on her long legs. Stricken, Sam gapes at Amara, who simpers like a Chesire cat, and vanishes into the mist.

Sam is alone in a magnificent garden. His only companion is a resurrected extension of his heart, and personification of love.

It's a stunning irony that it's Sam who crumples like paper and it's Jess he lurches forward to catch him. Her hands on her skin ignite a different kind of a spark, thawing a softness within him that had long since frosted over. He laughs through his tears as he presses his face into her skin, inhaling vanilla and rose and coconut.

When Jess speaks, her voice rumbles against his cheek, and Sam clenches his eyes shut and pretends they're at Stanford and he's merely crying because it's his birthday, and his family never called him. Sam's always been excellent at pretending. In the cage, he forged entire worlds with purple skies and yellow pastures and no monsters to hurt him, so he feels the cheap cotton of their sheets, hears the pneumatic his and the grind-and-groan of the Stanford shuttle in the distance. He isn't surprised that his inexplicable smell of toasts lingers in his nose. His apartment always smelled of it.

They stay like that, tangled in each other on the floor of a garden in a place that doesn't exist for a stretch of time that's both far too long and much too short. Sam pulls back and cups her face, pressing kisses to her lips and forehead and eyelashes with a desperate grace. Jess just grabs whatever she can and grips it bruisingly tight. "I k-know that I died. I know about Brady...and he wasn't himself. I'm just…I didn't know if you survived, I'm so…blessed to know that you did."

Sam's heart is beating so hard, it slaps against his breastbone. Amara's garden gleams in front of him, all ambrosia and paradise. "I'm right here."

Her frightened clutching turns to a tender cradling of his face, memorizing the changes. She giggles tearfully at the length and threads of silver in his hair. "You're older."

"It's been awhile…since you d-died."

She doesn't even seem shocked by that information, and he wonders if Amara had revived her with some subconscious knowledge of how she died. She looks down at her loose-fitting jeans and too big t-shirt and wrinkles her nose. "Please don't tell me grunge is back in."

Sam had forgotten that Jess often used humor as a defense mechanism. If anyone could handle resurrection with humor, it's Jessica Moore.

Sam has had the conversation with an imaginary version of Jess a millions of times both at Stanford when she was alive when she slept beside him and Sam laid awake, feeling like a fraud and a liar, and twice as many times after she'd died. Her hypothetical reactions ranged from visceral denial to outright violence.

And now that she is in front of him, all beating heart and beseeching eyes, Sam doesn't know if he has the strength. He ducks his head, wrings his hands, and hates himself more than he has in his entire life. "It was my fault. It's my fault that you died. That Brady…I'm so sorry, Jess. I…our whole life was a lie. I ran away to Stanford to escape my life and my family's business, and but I brought that danger with me…and I'm so sorry."

"Maybe dying changes your whole outlook on things, but I don't blame you, Sam, and I wouldn't have then."

"But you don't understand…a demon killed you. The same one that killed my mother."

"I know," Jess says. "It told me before the ceiling…and the fire. The black eyes were sort of a dead giveaway."

"I never thought they would find me, and I didn't know how deep it went. I was just trying to live my life and be happy."

Jess's face falls inscrutably blank as she surveills their surroundings-the light that hums from no distinct sun, the vibrantly green plants with dark, shimmering blossoms. "What's done is done. Somehow, Sam, we're together."

"You don't understand…"

Jess stands and extends her hand. "Then tell me about it."

And so Sam does. Sam tells her everything about his parents and hunting, Azazel and Dean, and life without her. She's rapt at how the story unfolds, and Sam feels guilt dumping a decade of insanity onto her. Jess doesn't mind though.

They venture through the garden, exploring its rolling his, bug-less and humidity free heat and strange unearthly foliage. Some even bear fruit. Jess plucks one from the vine. It looks like a tiny purple watermelon and it tastes like sunlight and vanilla. When Sam finishes, they just stroll, arm and arm, wondering how much time they have.

It's not an accident that they discover the house. Sam purposely led them away from it. It's a massive brick home with a cerulean door that gleams in the light. Amara even replicated the location—on a high hill overlooking a winding river with pristinely clear water. It's the house he coveted as a child, spending his days in the backseat of the Impala or training in alleyways while neighborhood kids played. But it's also the home he dreamed of building with Jess-a meandering house with six bedrooms that he would stuff with children and dogs and barbecues and joy.

The ornate golden doorknob turns. The blue door swings back into the shadows of the house Sam doesn't have the strength to explore, and Amara stands in the doorway.

Dizzy from dread and palpable panic, Sam spins them around, so Jess can't see the harbinger of Amara's shadow and hugs her so hard Jess's ribs shift. "I love you," he whispers into her ear. A cool breeze sweeps her fluffed, wavy hair over his face, and he runs his fingers through it. "I love you more than almost anything," Sam says.

Jess's heartbeat thumps acutely against Sam's, and for the first time since she arrived, she is terrified. "What's happening? Are we leaving?"

"Remember that night after I took my LSATs? We drove down to the beach. It was freezing and rainy, but we built a fire and made plans for the future?"

Jess nods, eyes filling with fleeting reverence. "You were going to start your own civil rights practice, and I was going to cure cancer. We'd be bi-coastal by thirty. We were going to save the world." The resulting sound she makes is a pitiful variation of laughter.

Sam nods, and presses a kiss to her forehead. "If you actually had the chance to do that, would you?"

Jessica is rightfully baffled. A beat after she opens her mouth to question him, Amara materializes in between them, cracking her knuckles. "Time's up, Sam. Have you decided?"

There's a part of him that knows he's owed this pasture of peace and so much more, because he's suffered savagely in order to save the world, and yet he still gets blamed and beaten and tortured from transgressions that were out of his control. He's risen through addiction and immutable grief and lifetimes of demonic manipulation, and now he's finally standing in his happily ever after, and he's being forced to deny it, and for what? For a planet of people that would rather oppress and blow each other up than co-exist?

Sam's not ashamed of his temptation or his pride. But he is guilty that he's not sure if he's strong enough to deny himself paradise.

Emboldened by rage, Sam hauls Amara out of earshot from Jess. "You want to make a deal; let's make one—Jessica returns to a fully intact earth in my place. You severe this bond with Dean, and heal Chuck."

"And what do I get in return?"

"You can kill me...or take me with you, so you won't be alone. The only thing Jessica did was love me. She's never deserved any of this."

Amara taps a manicured nail against her chin, pondering it. Her eyes rake Sam up and Dean. "Tempting."

"Do you want me to beg? I'll do that, Amara," he drops to his knees. "I am at your mercy. I will sacrifice everything—my life, time with my brother—if you spare her…and the world. Please don't make me kill her again."

"Kill her? I'm vengeful but I'm not cruel." At Sam's steel-melting glower, she sighs, "everyone, even sentient beings, has a line, Sam."

"Love is a sacrifice, Sam. And this is the one I want you to make, to save Dean and your precious earth. It's the only option you have." Her resolve is divine and resolute.

Without thinking, the sprints towards Jess. Maybe if he clings hard enough or enough or hopes enough, Sam can pull her back to earth with the strength of love alone.

The sky blackens, and smoke swirls about the paradise created just for them, sucking out all sounds as Jess tries to hide her fear, and he tries to reassure her.

The storm drags him backward, severing their grip with wicked indifference. Sam bucks and twists and fights with every scintilla of hatred and dread and love in his body, and milks what's left of his soul. But all he gets is one last warbling image of Jessica Moore, face clenched in determination and covered in tears. The first time she died, she only managed a strangled gasp before seared the life out of her. This time, she defiantly roars, "Love you, babe," into the ether before taking Amara's hand. Together, they venture into the house mere second before it implodes, folding it on itself in a tangle of red brick, bright blue and unrealized dreams.

Sam has seen men pushed beyond the boundaries of their own minds and into insanity. He's been there himself, but it was a gradual shuffle like the incremental rising of a fever or spreading of a rash. But this breakdown—the inability to cope— happens in the span of a few seconds. There's a sound in his chest, the visceral shattering of his spirit as Amara whirls away from him, and turns towards Jess.

It takes him too long to realize that it's his spirit cleaving in two, the light of his soul blowing like a cheap 60 watt bulb. Sam's mind and body fall still, and he lets Amara's power fling him bonelessly about.

And then Sam is plummeting through atmosphere and ozone, sky and fog, stone and metal, until he crashlands into the great room of the bunker.

Earth's gravity possesses a leadened weight Sam hadn't noticed before.

The effort to fill his lungs is excruciating, so Sam doesn't bother until his autonomic instincts force him to. Apparently, everything can happen without his consent.

The pain of his battered, tormented body—angry shoulder, scraped knees and raw fingertips—takes hold too, and Sam's actually grateful for the breath to scream.

Rubber soles against marble is the only warning he gets before Dean is manhandling him, checking his pulse and trying to out-holler his writhing brother.

" _Sammy! What did that bitch do to you?!_ _Hey, Chuck, can you heal him, please?_ "

Sam tries to express his disdain for anyone in the God's family, but he's trembling and hyperventilating so violently, he merely sputters out too-loud, chopping ragged sounds. Warmth diffuses them his body, a smoother, fluid rendition of Amara's jerky power, and Sam's shoulder ceases to ache and his bleeding fingertips knit together. The physical pain is gone, but even Chuck's power can't remedy to the gruesome wound of grief.

"Is he better? Did you do it? Sammy, hey, look at me, dude? You're okay now," Dean says.

Sam can only see a warbling version of Dean, thoroughly alive, and attempts to find the consolation in that.

Chuck emerges from somewhere behind Dean, hovering and observing like the omnipresent being he is.

Sam bats away Dean's hands, and sets his sights on the all mighty, who's calamity is not match for Sam's righteous rage. "You precious world is safe." He swayingly rises to his feet, and it's exceedingly satisfying that he towers over Him. " _Get. Out_."

Chuck is offended. "Mind your tone, dude."

Sam stalks towards Chuck. "What are you doing to do to me that you haven't already let happen? Are you going to burn my mother on the ceiling? Are you going to let my dad order my brother to kill me? Are you going to take away the everyone I've ever loved or cared about? Are you going let angels and demons manipulate me into starting the apocalypse? Are you going to let the Lucifer torture and violate me for centuries? Are you going to poison my brother with your Mark, and then set him loose on the world? _On me_? Are you going to blame me for all of it, knowing it wasn't my fault? Too late, it already happened and I'm still friggin' here. This is my…bunker so get the hell out. And take that angelic abomination with you."

Under his probing gaze, Chuck softens from where Sam has him cornered against the wall. " _Oh, Samuel._ I am sorry for what she did to you."

Distantly, Sam hears Dean bark, "What did you do? Sammy?"

Sam is shaking again, but he wonders if he'd ever stopped. "I spent my whole life believing in you, and it took meeting you to make me an atheist."

Chuck reels from the declaration, but he doesn't lash out like Sam had expected, and probably hoped. The majority of the world may be God-fearing people, but in that moment, Chuck looks terrified _of him_. He shuffles away from Sam and grabs his jacket and a discarded bag of Doritos. "I've never not had have faith in you, Sam. I should have told you that sooner. I should've done better."

Sam stares at Chuck, waiting for him to strike him down, to end the pain, but Chuck merely waits, willing to take more abuse.

Dean immediately backs his brother. "Hit the bricks, Chuck."

The righteous rage fades as soon as he's gone, and Sam wilts. There's nothing left.

"Whoa, whoa," Dean says and slips under Sam's arm because he's weaving and wobbling with anger and devastation so strong, it makes him sick. Sam clings blindly, sobbing and sweating and unable to catch his breath. "I can't, Dean…please…"

"I got you, dude, you're okay. Just hang to me," Dean reassures him as they shuffle down the hall.

The world is still irrevocably flawed.

The gates of hell are still open.

But Dean's there, holding him up and together as always. Sam bleakly wonders if it'll ever be enough.


End file.
